Areas include: Adjudicator, adjudication, architect, architects, architecture, building, buildings, building defects, commercial developments, cavity barriers, contracts, construction, construction contracts, construction adjudication, construction site audits, construction projects, cladding, defects, design and build.

CDM, CDM Regulations, Construction (Design and Management) Regulations, EWS1, external walls, external wall surveys, fire matters, fire risk assessments, fire risk assessor, fire safety order, health and safety, JCT contracts, risk assessments.

Principal Designer, The Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005,retail developments, residential developments, shopfitting, site audits, Building Safety Act.

Bernadette is a Practising Member of The Academy of Experts and is listed with the RIBA (Royal Institute of British Architects) Panel of Experts.

Bernadette has over 25 years of experience as a Chartered Arbitrator and has undertaken various appointments as an arbitrator, adjudicator and expert witness.

She also holds memberships on the CIArb Presidential Panel of Construction Adjudicators and the CIArb Presidential Panel of Arbitrators.

Bernadette has completed extensive arbitral and alternative dispute training, including, but not limited to, the MSc Construction Law and Arbitration programme at Kings College London, the CIArb Diploma in International Commercial Arbitration and ICC Arbitration training, and is undertaking the CIArb Diploma in Maritime Arbitration.

Bernadette holds the Cardiff University Bond Solon Expert Witness Certificate (Civil) 2021 and the Cardiff University Bond Solon Expert Witness Certificate (Criminal) 2022 and has undertaken the Bond Solon Discussions between Experts training course in 2022 as well as the Bond Solon Scottish Law & Procedure training course in 2023.

Bernadette qualified as an architect in 1995 and gained broad experience working in private architectural practices for Laing Design, Marks and Spencer, and a specialist construction claims consultant, James R Knowles, before establishing her own business, Barker Consultants, in 1993.

Bernadette’s scope of work encompasses appointments as expert witness, mediator, adjudicator, and arbitrator, as well as appointments under the CDM Regulations as Principal Designer.